They may be one of many, many neo-psych bands out there in 2015 whipping up retro-flavored noise, but this record proves that they are one of the best and most imaginative.

Servant of Love is an album that needs a few spins to be fully appreciated, but it's as sincere, heartfelt, and artful as anything Griffin has released to date, and if the form may seem elusive to some listeners, the content is powerful and satisfying, a reminder of why Patty Griffin is one of our best singer/songwriters.

With Savage Hills Ballroom Powers has expanded the Youth Lagoon sound without losing any of the intimacy of his bedroom pop beginnings.

Perhaps the first time the Dead Weather have truly lived up to their promise, Dodge and Burn is a joyride of an album--sexy, fun, and dangerous, it upholds the tenets of rock & roll.

It's this momentum that makes Sexwitch such a transcendent album, and some of the most exciting music any of these artists have made.

There is no band like out there like Le Butcherettes and A Raw Youth proves it.

[A] rare, pleasingly unfiltered debut that captures an exciting upcoming artist with little refinement.

Girl Band have similarly taken advantage of their expanded recording budget in order to craft their most bracing work yet.

Allas Sak proves that they are still as good as ever, if not better, and can still teach those who have followed in their wake a thing or two about crafting a satisfying album.

Although the tracks rarely surprise, frequently falling back on familiar sounds and structures -- loping basslines and synthesizer shadings that escalate at the same tempo always arrive on time, for instance--they're as well-built as those of the debut, and the Lawrences, along with their songwriting partners, cover the ups and downs of falling in and out of love in sharper fashion.

Even making an allowance for Hook's glaring absence, Music Complete is still a watered-down and uninspired album by a band that lost the plot long ago and can now only capture an occasional glimmer of what made it so great in the first place.

Polaris is the record that Tesseract have been working toward. The evolved maturity of their writing, playing, and arranging is matched by the experience and confidence Tomkins gained while away.

Lerner's easy and reliable delivery is the glue that keeps everything together, and while there's little doubt that Ad Infinitum was conceived and created during a time of artistic upheaval, it retains all of the warmth and humanity that's made his prior outings shine.

loss. Didn't He Ramble shows that as a performer and a songwriter, Hansard can create powerful and satisfying work that's up to the standard he set with the Frames, and this is a step up from 2012's impressive but uneven Rhythm and Repose.

An almost uncannily well-crafted second album.

A record that's not only easier to enjoy than most of his solo records, but also stronger song for song than many of the early Eagles albums.

Overall, Half Free straddles a neat balance between bittersweet pop hooks and murky, adventurous production.

Negative Feedback Resistor is music made to smash the state--or at the very least deafen the enemies of the people.

B'lieve I'm Goin Down... is an impeccably arranged album beneath its soothing, sleepy surface, with every element assisting in an illusion of deep, shimmering, and alluring melancholy.

It's a digital landscape where a very human pulsebeat lurks below the surface, and HeCTA's debut is an experiment that works remarkably well on its own terms.

As crucial as Hitomi and Robinson are to the album's effect, one of the highlights is a doleful 14-minute instrumental with faint bass, creeping drones, and chilling vibraphone reverberations.

Luckily for everyone else, Night School has cleaned up the tapes, stuck them in a nice package, and given more than just McDowall fanatics a chance to hear some of the most enchanting music of the '80s at last.

If Dave and Phil Alvin want to crank out an album like Lost Time every year until the sun finally sets on them, no one who loves blues and roots music would have any room to complain.

Grief's Infernal Flower is almost doom-by-the-numbers (which should reassure fans), but Endino's production, Cottrell's vocal confidence and lyricism, and the band's willingness to push its grooves into the red provide an admirable next step.

Tune in, come down, and drift about because Bob Moses remain the masters of restrained bliss house.

On Versions, Idjut Boys inject a bit of spice into tracks that occasionally verged on being too mellow in their original forms, resulting in a set of trippy, blissful reworks that are easily recommended over their source material.

Introducing Darlene Love doesn't show off many new wrinkles of her talent, but if you want to know if Love still has what it takes to make a great record, this album shows the answer is an unambiguous "Absolutely!"

Pagans in Vegas can be viewed as their first post-success album and while the struggle for their musical soul that plays out over its course makes for a sometimes less than coherent listen, it's always an interesting one.